


like they're magnets

by solongsoldier



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cancer, Everybody works at a state park, Injury, M/M, Maryland, Mentions of Blood, Park Service, The world needed park ranger Roy Mustang, appalachian trail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8613949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solongsoldier/pseuds/solongsoldier
Summary: at just after midnight, roy's phone rings. squinting into the too-bright light of the screen, he manages to make out the caller id - "elric" in all capitals, because god knows his life could use the excitement - and swipes right with a strangled growl. "i swear to god, edward, if this is a prank call, the authorities will never find your body."





	

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working at this au intermittently for like two years T.T basically just i worked in a state park for a long time and then one thing led to another and here we are. 
> 
> the park service employs people, called ridgerunners, whose job it is to hike a certain section of the appalachian trail and basically just make sure everything is going as it should there - they're there to help through hikers and day hikers, they're there to teach sustainability and leave no trace, etc etc. they usually stay out of the trail for about a week at a time. though it's not explicitly stated, this is what ed and al's job, and what they're out there doing right before the fic starts.
> 
> the title (and corresponding line in the fic) is an homage to an unrelated fic of my youth that i love dearly to this day, _we're like magnets_ by adellyna on lj.

at just after midnight, roy's phone rings. squinting into the too-bright light of the screen, he manages to make out the caller id - "elric" in all capitals, because god knows his life could use the excitement - and swipes right with a strangled growl. "i swear to god, edward, if this is a prank call, the authorities will never find your body."

"mr. mustang? it's alphonse," says a tinny voice on the other end of the line. "i'm sorry for calling so late."

"alphonse," he says, trying for all it's worth to sound like he wasn't snoring like a bear mere moments ago. "what can i do for you?"

"it's about ed," he says, and his voice is thin. alphonse could be walking the rim of an active volcano and he'd probably still sound like a smiling children's cartoon character; very few things seem rattle the elric brothers, and based on past experience, anything that worries them definitely worries roy. "he was- we were swapping stories with some through hikers, and we lost track of time - you know how brother is when you get him going, and one of the guys was a retired biochem professor, so multiply the usual talkativeness by at least ten"- al pauses, getting tangled up in his own words, and he takes a measured breath in the way that people do when they've spent a lot of years being taught to breathe. "anyway, we were out later than we should've been, and it was raining, and one minute we were just walking back to the shelter and the next ed is on the ground and bleeding."

"shit," roy says, because alponse won't swear and someone should, and because he's not exactly his most eloquent at this hour.

"he'll be fine, i'm sure. i mean he's definitely had worse," al continues, and gives a laugh that's hysterical along the edges. "his ankle's messed up, though - the right one, i mean - i think it's just a nasty sprain but he can't really put much weight on it."

"do you want to call you an ambulance? i can have EMS meet you at the trailhead if you think you can make it there."

alphonse doesn't have him on speaker, he's almost sure, so they must both be leaning in to listen when edward says "i don't do fucking hospitals" in a tone that's half petulant child and half deep ache.

"ah," mustang says, cordial on the outside while inside he feels like scaffolding collapsing in on itself. "right." when he clicks on his bedside light, his eyes scream in protest. "where are you now?" he asks. "north or south?"

"south," al says. "about half a mile from your house, actually."

"start walking north if you can," roy says, tugging on a sweatshirt and then rummaging around under his bed for shoes. "if you can't move, just stay where you are. i'm coming to get you."

he hears the unmistakable sound of ed's laughter, half garbled but still like the sun coming out after a rain storm. "you're such an idiot," ed replies, but his voice is fond.

" _brother_ is an idiot," al continues. "thank you so much, mr. mustang."

 

: :

 

"i really wish you'd call me roy, alphonse," roy gripes, adjusting his grip on ed's good (plastic) ankle. it's been a while since he's given a piggyback ride, and longer still since the person receiving was any larger than maes' overenthusiastic four year old, but it's not that far of a walk back. "i'm not _that_ old."

on his back, ed snorts.

"it's not that exactly," al says, and in the glow of roy's headlamp he'd almost guess al is blushing. "to be honest, part of it was just that i wanted to be as polite as possible if i was waking you up in the middle of the night asking for a favor."

"you malign my character," roy scoffs, faux offended, but really, it's his own fault. he should know better by now than to underestimate an elric. “i’ve never denied one of your ridiculous requests before, and most of the time you’re entirely fine and just trying to get me to buy you ice cream and/or five large pizzas on park dime.”

both brothers laugh, so in unison it’s almost eery. it harmonizes with the sound of the rain. “how did that go over with the higher ups, by the way?”

“i _am_ the higher ups, if you’ll recall,” roy mumbles, trying his hardest not to laugh along with them. it kind of works. “i added an extra section to the budget in some folder within a folder under the title ‘staff hospitality,’ and riza was kind enough to pretend she hadn’t noticed until the whole thing got sent off to annapolis at the end of the quarter. the corporate types just approve it and send it back, of course, but when word gets out that there’s pizza in the budget, ling is going to have a fit you got some and didn’t share.”

roy can practically feel ed rolling his eyes. “if he wanted to hike out to meet us, we would have shared,” he mumbles, face half pressed into roy’s shoulder. “besides, it wasn’t _his_ birthday.”

“it wasn’t yours either!” al squawks. "and _i_ would happily have shared."

roy rolls his eyes. he wouldn't admit it without the threat of bodily harm, but some part of him enjoys the elric brothers in spite of all their shenanigans. "if you're going to keep getting yourself into situations where i have to carry you, i'm cutting off all taxpayer-funded snacks."

ed makes a noise of indignation. "i never asked your dumb ass to come out here," he retorts. "why would you answer the phone in the middle of the night anyway?"

roy bites back the obvious answer - "because i care about you, even if you're too socially-inept to recognize that" - and attempts to shrug his shoulders despite edward's arms around his neck. "no one would call me late at night if it wasn't important," he reasons. it's a good enough lie. "and if i didn't answer, you'd move on to bugging my staff." 

"hughes was my next choice," ed admits.

"maes has a tiny daughter who doesn't need to be woken up and an amazing, far-too-good-for-him wife who worries about you both enough as it is." roy snorts. "trust me, i'm doing everyone a favor, not just the two of you."

"we really do appreciate it, mr. mustang," alphonse says. 

blessedly, roy can see the trailhead coming into view around the next bend. it's not a bad hike under better circumstances: the trail in maryland's rocky, sure, but it's also flat as a board.  
that said, while ed's not exactly heavy, roy's not really in good enough shape to be carting him around like this, and the steady rain is getting him slightly soggy in his pajama pants. 

from there, it's easy enough to check for oncoming traffic and then hustle across the road and under the cover of roy's porch. roy hands his keys to al with a bit of fumbling, who blessedly gets the front door open without too much extra hassle. 

"welcome to my humble abode," roy says, his voice intentionally flat. "i can't say i'm really prepared to have company, but at the very least it's dry in here."

"huh," ed says, surveying the foyer with a raised eyebrow as roy puts him down. "nice place you got here, mustang. i gotta say, i was expecting less from the state government."

al smacks him, gently, upside the head, before continuing to remove his muddy boots. 

"it's not a bad gig," roy counters, tugging off his sweatshirt. he feels underdressed now, entertaining both elric brothers in his living room in his pajamas and bare feet. "i have basically no commute to speak of, and all the maintenance on the house is covered by the deduction they take from my salary."

"you like living out here?" ed asks, accepting al's hand for balance as he tries to work his way out of his boots with only the one good ankle. "it's a little off the beaten path."

roy hums. "i grew up in the city," he explains. "i've done urban living before, and with my choice of career, rural makes sense now more than ever. i appreciate the quiet of it, these days.”

"getting old, huh?" ed quips. "i swear to god, mustang, sometimes you make the joke for me."

roy can't help but laugh at that. "my house, elric," he says, clicking his tongue. "keep that up and see which brother gets my guest room."

 

: :

 

"you've never asked me," ed says. "about my leg."

edward is sitting on the sink in roy's master bath. his left leg is kicking the cabinet beneath the sink in a somewhat steady rhythm, while his other is somewhat precariously outstretched between the counter and roy's lap; roy is sitting on the toilet with the seat down, ed's leg in his lap, trying to get the rocks and dirt out of ed's wounds. alphonse is holed away in the guest bedroom in roy's borrowed pajamas.

"no," roy says, after a moment. he keeps his eyes trained down, focused on what he's doing. "i didn't."

"i used to think you'd just asked hughes about it," he continues, "but the more i get to know you, the more i think you have enough baggage to know not to ask." edward pauses, looking away. "what i'm saying is thanks, i guess." 

roy takes a deep breath, his tweezers carefully poised. "i didn't realize maes had asked you about it," he offers, which isn't an answer. 

"politely, of course," ed offers, half laughing and half wincing as roy continues cleaning the scraped up mess of ed's knee, "or as politely as you can, i guess. he really didn't tell you, then?"

"no," roy confirms. "maes knows better than to try to gossip with me about stuff like that. i respect your decision to share what you want to share, and anything outside of that doesn't matter." 

ed pauses for just a second too long. "the army teach you that?" 

roy bristles, thinks of the darkest days of his life, the nights with his head in his hands and his stomach twisting and flipping with anxiety. the bile in his throat is sour and acrid, but he won't let himself back down from this. "something like that, yes," he mumbles, not looking up. he puts the tweezers down and goes for the disinfectant. "nothing like a dishonorable discharge looming over your head to make sure your private life stays private." pause. "this will sting, by the way. 

ed just rolls his eyes at the warning, though he does bite back a hiss as roy continues to clean the wound. "you enlisted straight out of high school, right? i'm sure it served its purpose at the time."

"you know," roy muses, unwrapping some gauze, "it's probably in poor taste to reveal you've been poking around in my past when we've just been talking about"-

"i had cancer," edward says, quiet and at a meandering pace. he's fidgetting with the end of his braid, undoing and redoing the elastic, and roy thinks he's never seen ed look nervous before. "osteosarcoma, when i was sixteen."

on his leg, roy's hands go still.

"they caught it early, all things considered, but not early enough, ergo the fake leg." he wiggles his left foot in the air for emphasis. "i lost the leg, and i was- struggling. al was the one who suggested we should start hiking - all the good ideas are his, but don't tell him i said that - and then we did, and i didn't suck at it, and it felt good, to care about something again. and then once we fell in love, we never wanted to leave."

roy gives a soft laugh. “sometimes it’s like that,” he says fondly. "the park service was supposed to be a transition thing for me, but suddenly when the time came, i liked this a lot more than my five year plan." he quietly places the last piece of tape on the gauze pad. “i’m done with your leg, by the way.”

ed grins. "thanks."

"thank _you_ ," roy says, because it's going on 2am and apparently his filter is gone at this hour even if he hasn't had a few drinks. his hand, seemingly acting alone and without the permission of his conscious mind, lingers on ed's knee. "i meant what i said, you don't owe me anything, but i- i recognize that this isn't easy for you, and i appreciate the vote of confidence."

when they make eye contact, ed's gaze is so intense it burns. "you've earned it," ed says, and his voice has gone soft.

roy leans forward a fraction of an inch, like they're magnets. "edward," he says. the silence swells. "can i kiss you?"

there’s a long, terrifying second of nothing. roy feels ed’s leg pull away from his hand, but his vision seems to be going white at the edges, and this is about to get terrifically embarrassing if he doesn't get his act together in the next like fifteen seconds, and-

ed's hand on his chin brings him back. when his vision kaleidoscopes back into focus, ed's eyes are oceans deeps and begging for more. 

the kiss is sweet and sparkling, too much and not enough all at once. roy hums, grabs, pulls him closer and deeper. 

when they break apart, ed stays where he is, all up in roy's face and one hand anchored on his shirt collar. "i trust you," he says. "i trust you, and i want you, and i know that that scares you, but i'm not going anywhere."

roy flusters, falters. edward is right, of course - somewhere along the journey from iraq to these appalachian foothills, roy became transparent, and he might be afraid of that if it didn’t make him feel so inexplicably comforted. no one has ever- people don’t see him as he is, and if they do, they run as fast as they can in the other direction, because they don’t want any more blood on their hands. “yes,” he says. one word is nowhere near enough, but it’s all he can think. yes, yes, yes. 

“yeah,” ed replies, laughing. “and i didn’t, by the way. go poking around in your past. hughes just has this picture of the two of you on his desk, all dressed up and ready to ship out.”

roy smiles. “i know the one,” he agrees. he’s got his own copy, tucked away in his top desk drawer. “i appreciate that, though. more than you know.”

ed laughs. his hand comes up, playing with roy’s hair. “i think you mean exactly as much as i know, technically speaking,” he argues. “anyway, i was going to propose less talking and more kissing. also, perhaps a slightly more atmospheric location.”

roy looks at him for a long second, eyes so bright they’re like stars. “how do you feel about beds?” he asks, in his best deadly serious actor voice. 

“love ‘em,” ed agrees. unsurprisingly, ed gives as good as he gets. “lead on, romeo.”

 

: : 

 

the next morning, roy wakes up to ed asleep against his back, his hair everywhere and his skin ethereal where the sunlight catches it just right. when he gets himself out of the nest of blankets, he comes down the stairs to find alphonse sitting at his breakfast nook, nursing what appears to be a mug of roy’s favorite black tea, with a facial expression perhaps best described as comically unamused. 

“alphonse, good morning,” roy says, the blush creeping into his face. 

“riza’s been calling the landline,” al answers, his voice flat but face lit up like christmas. “i told her you and brother were otherwise engaged, if she knew what i meant, and we shared a brief moment of rolling our eyes in unison and muttering ‘finally’ under our breath despite the physical distance between us. isn’t technology great?” he pauses to sip his tea.

“perfect,” roy says, and bolts to the kettle with as much energy as four hours of sleep can provide. he lights the stove, slams a mug on the counter with ever so slightly more force than gravity alone would provide, and plops his tea bag in in companionable silence. “this might be an unforgivably oafish question, alphonse, but does your brother”-

“enjoy waking up alone after finally securing the longest pursued romantic conquest of my short twenty five years of life?” ed answers, limping into the doorway. roy's clothes are adorably too big on him, and he’s done his hair up in a sloppy bun from which several strands have escaped. “it’s not my favorite, i gotta say.”

roy freezes, scrambles. “edward, i”- 

ed flashes him a grin. “relax, i’m just fucking with you.” he crosses the room slowly, careful steps where he gently puts weight on his injured ankle, and when he's six inches from where roy's leaning back against the sink, he puts a warm hand on roy’s waist just at the hem of his t shirt. “but i do _not_ drink tea, if that’s what you were gonna ask.” 

“of course not,” roy says, and laughs back. his hands fall comfortably on ed’s hips. “good morning, beautiful. how are you feeling?"

al gives a pointed cough from where he’s seated, but ed pulls roy in for a kiss anyway.


End file.
